


Little Accidents

by we are the stories (Detliela)



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Future Fic, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Minor Original Character(s), Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 16:39:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4884079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Detliela/pseuds/we%20are%20the%20stories
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love is a precarious thing in the wasteland, like some exposed nerve just waiting to be plucked and exploited.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Accidents

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place 5-6 years after the end of Fury Road with Max being sorta settled at the Citadel for 2 years and intimate with Furiosa for about 3. I have lots of headcanons of him coming and going for years until his stays become longer than his absences, while he and Furiosa slowly earn the now comfortable intimacy between them. 
> 
> For this story I names the surviving Vuvalini Marra and Erie.
> 
> Also I'm thinking of potentially making this a collection of random stories and one shots if it seems like people might be interested in seeing what takes place after and/or before this. 
> 
> No beta - All mistakes are mine.

He's never gone for more than fifteen days anymore. It's not something they talk about or agree to. It just happens. He'll head out just before dawn after a 30 or even 100 day stay with a murmured, "I'm gonna head out for a while" and kiss to her temple. She's still half asleep, but she rolls closer until her lips catch his.

 

"Stay safe," she always says and hopes he hears the _come back to me_ she can't say. He hums and tells her to do the same before he disappears down to the still empty garages.

 

Later, when Furiosa is elbow deep in the innards of the new supply rig, Capable brushes up beside her and quietly confirms, “he’ll be back soon.” She always seem to think Furiosa needs to hear this, as if she can see the part of her waiting for the day he doesn’t come back.

 

“I know.”

 

“He loves you.”

 

Furiosa sighs and rolls her eyes. Love is a precarious thing in the wasteland. Maybe it's what they have and maybe it's not, but there's no point in proclaiming it for all those still looking for the chink in her armor to see.

 

“Don’t you have work to do?”

 

Capable smirks in a whimsical sort of way as if it's all worth it and then trots off to the council room. Furiosa glances to the empty garage bay and then buries herself back in her rig.

 

//

 

The nausea starts the second day he’s gone. She wakes to bile inching up her throat and barely scrambles to their small washroom before she lurches her already empty stomach into the basin there. She hacks and coughs, tears stinging her eyes, and she nearly vomits again from the after taste.

 

She slides down the wall, heaving in clean breaths as her head falls back. She’s used to a small pit forming in her stomach as the tenth day of his jaunt out in the wasteland passes, but it’s never been like this and it's far too early. Her body feels limp and she just wants to crawl back into bed to feel Max’s fingers smooth up and down her spine. Instead, she pushes herself up and readies for the day.

 

The sisters and Ace know that something’s up when she practically turns green at the sight of the plate of bread and fruit passed toward her in the dining hall that morning. She retreats to her rig to continue to get it ready for the impending run to Gastown. She thinks of going to Erie for one of her elixirs, but then it finally passes and she’s hungrier than she can ever remember being, eating two plates of beans and greens.

 

She shrugs it off and feels perfectly normal by the time she lies down that night. But then she wakes the next morning with that fluttery, retching feeling, and again the next day and the next. The pattern continues even as she drives out to Gastown, while Toast chews on a piece of wheat and eyes her like she might drop any minute.

 

“You sure you’re up for this?”

 

“I’m fine.”

 

Toast shrugs like she doesn’t really believe it. Furiosa isn’t sure anymore either. What if she’s really sick? What if something has snuck up her that she can’t fight?

 

//

 

The day after the supply run she slips down to Erie’s clinic. She tries to avoid the area, though not as much as Max. It's where the Organic worked, but Erie has made it her own with shelves of healing chemicals and worn, warm blankets. She's there at a workbench as she teaches Cheedo some concoction for treating burns. Furiosa clears her throat and their eyes swing up to hers, startled, but pleased.

 

“Here, take this to the pups down the hall,” Erie says to Cheedo, who nods and walks out.

 

Furiosa closes the door and then meets Erie’s eyes. She just stares back as her mouth twitches, like she knows something she doesn’t.

 

“I hear you’ve been feeling ill,” she says.

 

“Just in the mornings and then I feel...fine. Mostly.”

 

Erie steps closer and eyes her up down. Something softens in her eyes that Furiosa doesn’t understand, but it makes her stomach flutter and turn.

 

“Back before, they would call something like that morning sickness. It was a sign a woman was having a baby.”

 

"That’s not--”

 

“Furiosa, when was the last time you bled?”

 

“I. I don’t know. One. Maybe two cycles ago, but that. I can’t be.”

 

“Can’t you? You can’t tell me you and that man of yours are just holding hands at night.”

 

“That’s not. I mean I literally can’t. I never could. Before. That’s...that’s why I was thrown out of the vault.”

 

“Maybe you were never the problem. You and Max are healthy. Strong. Probably more so now than in hundreds of days.”

 

“I can't,” she barely says.

 

“Have you had any other symptoms? Pain in the lower back. Tenderness in the breasts.”

 

“Uh, a little.”

 

“Let's give it ten days. I can try an internal exam then. And if you’d rather not chance it at all, there’s herbs I could give you. Cause some bad cramping, but then it'd be done."

 

“I’m not sure. I, uh…”

 

She needs to talk to Max, but the thought makes her stomach turn even more. She could take the herbs and he’d never have to know. Just her and Erie and no one else. She shakes her head and staggers back up to her quarters. She barely remembers getting there or stripping down to her linens until she slumps down into the space where he usually sleeps.

 

//

 

Ten days pass more quickly than normal. She gets sick in the mornings and then eyes the garage in the evenings. She almost feels relieved when she doesn’t see his car roll in and pushes down that nugget of worry that he should be back by now.

 

On the fifteenth day since Max left, Furiosa goes back to Erie. She tries not to tense on the table and clutches her fist around the edge. She silently chants, _it's just Erie_ , and not the Organic taking more time than needed between her thighs.

 

On the sixteenth, she allows the gnawing at her her gut to override the morning nausea. He should be back by now. This is the longest he’s been gone in hundreds of days and there’s no reason for it. No fight. No sign he no longer wants her or somehow _knew_ and hightailed it before he'd have to face it.

 

On the seventeenth day, she pulls Ace aside and has him ready a car for them to head out into the Wasteland.

 

//

 

Furiosa scans the terrain while Ace drives until she spots two overturned cars about ten clicks south. She signals for Ace to take the turn and as they edge closer she can make out a couple of scavengers laid out, unmoving on the sand. Just beyond them she makes out Max’s two-door V8 toppled onto its roof and her heart speeds up.

 

As Ace skids to a stop she’s already stepping out with a shotgun in her hands. He’s a few steps behind, while she checks the bodies, who have been down long enough to bleed out. She steps closer to his car and listens for movement, but knows she won't hear any. Even if he's still alive in there he won't give anyone a clue that someone's there to terrorize.

 

She crouches slowly near the driver's window and calls his name. She's not surprised to make out the barrel of a glock before she catches his eyes. He thumbs the safety back almost immediately as his head flops back against the roof of the car with a groan.

 

"My leg," he grunts. "Broken."

 

She looks to his leg. His brace is bent, mangled, and digging into his leathers. She calls to Ace to go to the other side to drag Max out with arms hooked under his shoulders. Max hobbles to the car with an arm around each of his rescuers and does what he can to help as Furiosa hauls him into the back seat.

 

Furiosa cradles his body against hers and gets him to sip water, while Ace fangs it back to the Citadel. She can practically feel the adrenaline drain from his body as he passes out against her. She strokes her flesh fingers through his hair and stares out the window, avoiding the sly looks Ace gives her through the rear view.

 

 

//

 

He's slept for most of a day in between brief periods to eat, drink, and piss while maneuvering the crutch he already loathes. His shin is splinted and propped up on blankets as they keep his scarred, swollen knee lathered in Erie's cooling salve.

 

She sits, her hip against his, and watches him sleep, his head lolling to one side. His beard has filled in and cheeks are slightly singed pink. She thinks of how different he is from the muzzled man she met thousands of days ago on the Fury Road. He lives more in his skin and less in his head. There’s still nightmares and panic attacks, but there’s easy affections too, like the small touches to her arm or side as they maneuver around each other in their small room. Or the soft, final kisses to her neck or head as they leave for their days, even when they’ll be beside each other in the rig for most of it.

 

He shifts with a groan as his head comes back to center and a hand migrates to her thigh. She's in her sleeping linens and the skin is exposed where his thumb swipes back and forth. The hand is a warm weight she never thought she'd get used to but now always misses when it's gone.

 

"Hey," he croaks, blinking up at her.

 

"Hey. How's the pain?"

 

"Bearable."

 

"I have more of the numbing salve I ca--"

 

"It's okay. Just stay here. Missed you."

 

His hand squeezes her thigh and she slides her fingers against his bristled cheek, muttering, "fool." He smirks as his hand moves to cups her neck and then brings her mouth down to his. She can't help but smile as he catches her bottom lip between his, gently tugging. He so warm and familiar as his tongue chases after hers that she nearly forgets the gnawing little thing growing inside her.

 

Her mouth skids away from his and buries her face into his neck, shuddering out a breath. She stretches out beside him and lets her head come to rest on his shoulder. Her stomach flutters and her throat tightens as his fingers trace along her arm.

 

"All right?" He asks. "Thought I heard you earlier. Getting sick."

 

She nods out of habit, but slightly shakes her head as she rolls away from him. She sits up so her back is to him, legs over the edge, as she puts as much distance between them as the small mattress allows. She fists the sheets and steels her spine as she sucks in a breath, chin lifting.

 

"I'm pregnant," she says, her voice more like an Imperator than a lover.

 

She imagines his furrowed brow and parted mouth as she sits with the silence. The mattress jostles and she thinks he’s come to sit up on his elbows, but she keeps her eyes forward, neck like hard steel.

 

"What?"

 

"You heard me."

 

"I thought you...infertile."

 

"Yeah, well, so did I," she mutters and hears some hum or a grunt behind her. "Erie says there's herbs she could give me. It would cause it to miscarry."

 

"Is that what you want?"

 

"Do you?"

 

"I, uh,” he stutters and she hears him sigh. “It's your choice."

 

"No. Don't put it all on me."

 

"I won't ask you to do anything you don't want."

 

"What do you want?"

 

She looks over her shoulder at him then. He flops back down flat and rubs his hands over his eyes. When he pulls them away he stares blankly up at the ceiling fingers twitching at his sides.  She sees the moisture in his eyes as he blinks and she has to turn away. She stares down at the floor while she listens to him sniff and then clear his throat.

 

"You, uh, never know what you'd do to protect your child. And when you can't. It kills you. I wouldn't survive that again. Wouldn't want to."

 

Furiosa nods because she knows he’s already lost everything. Knows love in this world is like an exposed nerve waiting to be plucked until nothing's left.

 

"So it's probably best to not keep it. The world we live in...the life we lead. I’m a warrior. A general. That’s how people need to see me. It's how I survived as long as I did.”

 

He hums and she feels his shoulder brush her back as he sits up. He's still and quiet, while she fights the urge to lean into him. She itches with the silence and would rather he pick a fight or rage at her so then she could rage right back.

 

“Thought we were doing more now than just surviving,” he says.

 

“I can’t want it," she whispers. “Loving something that much. It’s a mistake.”

 

“I know,” he murmurs. “Doesn't mean it's not wanted.”

 

She turns to see him, but he can't quite meet her eyes as his shift to some spot past her shoulder. She wonders if he does want it or if he's capable of wanting something so fragile, so steeped in the inevitability of heartache. She shut down such thoughts as soon as she became a wife. Her thoughts of rising among the many mothers to teach either her birthed or initiate daughters the way of the Vuvalini died with her mother.

 

"A part of me wants it," she says.

 

He hums and then let's out a shaky breath. She says his name like a question, but he just curls an arm around her as he murmurs, "Lay down with me. Sleep."

 

She lets him pull her down into his side and wants to ask him again, wants some sign that his leg isn’t the only thing keeping him here with her. His fingers are tense around her hip and it doesn’t even feel like his back is completely settled into the mattress. Instead she closes her eyes. She isn't sure if either of them really sleeps, but they try.

 

//

 

He's quiet the next morning, either staring up at the ceiling or pretending to read one of the books Dag brought down to him. She half expects him to find an excuse to hobble down to the garage, while she fights down the queasiness settled in her gut. She hasn't thrown up which is some stretch of an improvement, but she can feel the tension in his back and shoulders as if it was a weight on her own.

 

She keeps herself busy in the early morning by taking measurements of his leg and then cobbling together pieces that will eventually be a new brace. They only speak when she asks him to hold a strip of metal or piece of leather as she works.

 

"I have to go down to a council meeting. Do you need anything?"

 

"I'm okay."

 

She leaves him with a nod and a sigh. She goes to the council meeting, but barely hears Toast’s reports of supply counts or Capable’s of the large family that just arrived. She stares down at some spot on the somewhat rounded table until Toast is calling her name.

 

"Are you okay?" Capable asks.

 

Furiosa clears her throat, straightening in her chair, and then mutters, "I'm fine." She asks after the family and their uses. Capable smiles when she mentions the oldest son, who claims to be a black thumb.

 

"Send him down to Ace. See what he can do," Furiosa commands as she rises and leaves them to murmur after her.

 

//

 

A week passes and Max starts hobbling around the the caverns of their floor. She knows it’s driving him mad not being able to come and go wherever he pleases whenever he wants. She keeps waiting for him to escape down to his car and not come back. But every night he’s there when she brings up plates of food for them to share in the quiet of their room.

 

He sits up against the headboard, while she sits at the workbench. She watches him from the corner of her eye and she feels an ache in her stomach that only comes from missing him. There's been no easy kisses or touches, just static thick air like a wall they can't climb over.

 

“We have to talk about this," she orders, twisting at the waist to look at him.

 

“We did," he says with a blink and shrug that makes her jaw clench. "What else is there to say?” 

 

“I need to know you’re here.”

 

“I am, aren't I?”

 

She glares at him, ice filling her veins and eyes. She shakes her head and then pushes up, her chair kicking out beneath her like an unintended casualty.

 

“I need to know whether you’re staying or going," she says over her shoulder and then slams the door behind her.

 

//

 

Furiosa finds herself at the top of the housing tower, where the sisters, council members, and some small war boy crews are gathered around a fire pit passing moonshine. She finds a far corner and plops down on the bench there, leaning back against the half-wall behind her. There's a family with guitars and a single drum picking away and filling the space with a upbeat sound. Dag is swinging around little Angharad, while Capable is being spun by the young man who came in with that family a couple weeks back, a smile lighting her face more brightly than Furiosa can remember. She spots Toast sharing a bottle with the supply rig crew and Cheedo sandwiched between Erie and Marra, giggling at some story, probably dirty judging from her blush.

 

“Hey Boss,” Ace appears beside her, offering a jug.

 

She holds her hand and shakes her head as she says, “don’t have the stomach for it right now.” He takes the seat beside her, elbows on his knees as he takes swigs from his bottle.

 

“Everything alright?” he asks.

 

“Fine.”

 

“How’s your road warrior?”

 

“Healing.”

 

Ace is quiet company and doesn’t expect any more than her one-word answers. They watch as their crews blow off steam, some finding dark corners to grope and kiss, until they finally disappear to either trade paint or collapse in their bunks.

 

“Boss,” Ace says as he he gestures to opposite wall where the entrance is.

 

She sees Max limp towards her, the crutch digging into his underarm as he tries to hide the grimace tightening his jaw. She huffs and then avoids watching as he drops down beside her with a groan and tosses his crutch on the floor. Ace disappears with a muttered, “getting late.”.

 

“You’re going to ruin your leg,” she says.

 

“It's fine. Had some boys help me.”

 

She feels his hip against hers and hears him sigh. They sit as if they are one of those dark corners not meant for the fire or the uproarious sound of letting everything go. 

 

“Who’s the boy? With Capable?” he asks.

 

He’s hardly a boy, all long and lean muscles with a short mop of dark hair and deep set blue eyes. Capable sits with him now just slightly away from the group. She laughs and wipes at her lips, wet with bottle they’re passing back and forth.

 

“His name’s Kane.”

 

“They’re...friendly.”

 

“She likes him.”

 

“You think he’s safe?”

 

“As much as anyone. She can take care of herself.”

 

“I know-”

 

A whiny “nooo,” fills the air and then Angharad toddles towards them, pouting with her best murder stare.  She makes a beeline straight to Max and flops against him, growling into his stomach.

 

“Mum won’t dance with me anymore,” she complains.

 

“You’re just tired.”

 

“No I’m not.”

 

He just hums and pulls her up onto his good leg. Her head plops down onto his shoulder and her eyes droop almost instantly. Furiosa has always been sort of mesmerized by the quiet way he is with little Angharad. Whether it’s quietly working alongside her in the gardens or shushing her as her mother tries to work without the child hanging on her skirts. It’s always been a glimpse into the young father he once was and Furiosa has to look away because she thinks she might fucking cry.

 

A beat passes and she feels his arm slip through hers to twine their fingers. She blinks and looks down as his thick, rough fingers around her slender ones.

 

“I’m not leaving. I’m just...scared.”

 

“You think I’m not?” she asks, finally meeting his eyes.

 

“I know you are,” he says and then huffs out a breath. “I keep thinking the moment I’m happy about it. Will be the moment it’s taken away.”

 

“A lot could go wrong.”

 

“We might get lucky. And we, uh, we could make it work. We’d have help.” 

 

He nods to the sisters and the Vuvalini. She glances toward them and then back to the sleeping child that more than proves his point.

 

“You’re sure?”

 

“As much as you are.”

 

“That’s not exactly comforting.”

 

He smirks a little at that and squeezes her hand. She leans down and lets her head rest on his shoulder before she can think to much about it. It’s probably the most affectionate they’ve ever been in public and she can feel him stiffen in surprise. But then he’s relaxed and kissing the the top of her head.

 

"I’m better with you," he whispers. “Don’t want to lose that.” 

 

She gives a jerky nod and murmurs, “me too.” She shakes her hand away and sits up to rub at her eyes. She feels Max’s palm rest on her lower back and then his fingers knead the spot that’s been aching for days. She sighs, closing her eyes, and thinks maybe everything will be okay.


End file.
